Lance Bachelder
Forum Replies Created
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Our industry has been built on the free intern who gains experience. I did it – everyone I know has done it. But here in CA. it is illegal to use free interns – even if you offer college credit and have an agreement with a local film school or whomever.
The only way they can legally be there for free is that they are simply observing. The moment they do anything to benefit the business they have to be paid at least min. wage. So if you ask an intern to get you coffee or carry a camera bag or render some shots they must be paid! If you show them how to render some shots and let them practice on some old footage you’re not going to use that is ok – they are learning etc.
That said, it’s never gonna change – sadly producers will always create budgets based on free help here and there – even if it’s a high budget show. And these same producers will drive their Porsche’s back to Malibu every night after spending the day telling you how tight things are and how they wish they could pay and how if you do a good job they can probably pay you on the next show…
Is your budget so tight you can’t even offer a little cash for gas and buy their meals? Anything helps – they’re obviously not gonna make a living wage but at least they’ll feel better about the whole process and really try hard for you.
Lance Bachelder
Southern California -
You’re right Richard! Who needs quality anyways? MP3’s are fine for music, Avatar probably should have been shot with a DVX100, and what do we even need these crazy big chips for – 1/3″ chips are fine!
You’re a prime example of that old adage- those that can do, those that can’t teach. Rewriting manuals isn’t exactly gonna win you any Pulitzer’s pal. I was cutting a million dollar feature on Final Cut 1 in June of 99… just weeks after it was introduced at NAB at the Sands if you were there.
I looked for you on IMDB… you know that industry standard thing we use in motioon picture and television industry? Didn’t see anything for you? My last TV series had 4 to 5 million viewers every week and won an Emmy… my latest feature was shot shot with DSLR’s, what’d you shot your last feature or national TV series on?
I’ve done more testing transcoding footage than you could ever dream of over the past decade – but I’m doing it for TV shows and movies with multi-million dollar budgets. Broadcasters here in LA demand everything – QC is a bitch! Drives are cheap! So I use HQ when I use ProRES! I use Filmscan 2 when I use Cineform. I use DNxHD 175 or better when I deliver on Avid. I use HDCAM SR over HDCAM… I use Dual Link SR when I can…
Don’t be a moron…
Lance Bachelder
Southern California -
Dumb statement – stick to writing books.
Lance Bachelder
Southern California -
Shot with what? Did you transcode to ProRES HQ 1080 30p? All you have to do is drop the footage on a new, empty timeline and FCP will ask if if you want to use the settings of the footage – just say yes!
Lance Bachelder
Southern California -
As far as CPU’s and display cards – please stick with Intel and nVidia – don’t fart around with AMD/ATI stuff for Vegas or CS5! And Avid won’t even launch on an ATI card.
Lance Bachelder
Southern California -
For my work I’m planning to get an HP Z series for my next show – it will be an Avid qualified workstation so I know it will run Vegas, CS5 and Avis with no problems. I’m currently working on 2 workstations that I built – one QuadCore Extreme Edition and one i7 machine – they’re fine but I want pro built from now on so I can narrow any potential capability probs in the future.
FCP can handle just about all the industry standard codecs including ProRES, DVCPROHD, DnxHD, Cineform, uncompressed and many more. Don’t know where the one or two codecs thing got started but just not true.
Yeah you could actually run a dual boot Quad i7 27″ iMac and run Vegas and FCP! Love that machine…
Lance Bachelder
Southern California -
4444 gives full color bandwidth on all channels plus an Alpha Channel which is need for graphics, fx and compositing work. I cannot see a visual benefit to using 4444 vs. 422 HQ when transcoding DSLR footage. But if you are shooting green screen stuff you’d probably want the extra info for keying.
Lance Bachelder
Southern California -
You can create ProRES 444 by turning off the Alpha Channel (that’s what the 4th 4 is) but it is an overkill format for transcoding DSLR footage unless you’re working on theatrical feature but then you’d have a different workflow anyways.
I use ProRES HQ for everything – hard drives are cheap and I like having the HQ when I start color timing whether in FCP or Color. I disagree with any DSLR user who says all you need is standard ProRES or LT.
Like Richard said you don’t need to go into to Color but it is a nice tool to use and I prefer Color to just timing in FCP. That said Magic Bullet Colorista II is a GREAT tool to use inside FCP, much more powerful than the 3-Way and has an easy-to-use Auto Balance tool to help with white balance issues.
Lance Bachelder
Southern California -
As far as clips on the timeline – if you know what you’re doing this is fine – but would rather render all my work into a common codec and framerate before I start working. Mixing interlaced and progressive files along with 24p and 29.97 files in various sizes and codecs can lead to slower performance while editing and a crappy looking finished product no matter what NLE you’re using if you don’t watch out.
Not sure yet why 10 is acting up – I have a feeling it’s the re-write of their video plug-in SDK but I’m not an engineer – I just know it crashes continually and randomly on my 2 very up-to-date workstations. All the video plug-ins are much more sluggish than they were in past versions. Once the bugs are worked out it’s going to be great – it has some killer features that could finally take to true pro level with FCP and Avid but the kinks have to be worked out.
As far as “precise blah blah”… if you’re doing a lot of capturing and output from/to various sources such as HDCAM and Digibeta decks etc FCP is going to be better than Vegas. The use of industry standard io cards such as the Kona or Decklink is perfected and proven with FCP – still a bit shaky with Vegas. Outputs need to be frame accurate and pass rigorous broadcaster QC and this is where FCP and Avid products shine.
And why did you choose Vegas for your feature? We shot with the Canon DSLR’s for most of the movie and after much testing on Mac and PC’s with various codecs etc found that syncing dailies in Vegas and rendering to XDCAM 422 yielded the best results – the DSLR world is changing all the time and there are now tools available that weren’t when we started editing – not sure this would still be the workflow we would choose if we were starting the process today. https://www.cutbackthemovie.com for temp trailer…
As far as work or play – if you’re just starting out and maybe doing web videos or whatever you may not even need either product – buy a new Mac and you get the new iMovie 11 which is very powerful – for free! And the 27″ Quad iMac is probably the best deal out there for someone starting in Media work and you can add FCP later if you want. Or pick up any PC and go get Vegas MovieStudio for under a 100 bucks – either product will get you started and let you produce good work – assuming it’s written and shot well to begin with. They’re just tools after all – once you learn to edit well – it won’t matter what you’re using as they all change and leapfrog each other with each new version.
As far as workstations go _ I’ve built dozens of them over the years including the 2 I have now. At my last studio gig we had all Dell and HP pro workstations – they’re expensive but guess what? They work! There’s reasons why Avid only certifies certain machines! And even Vegas runs better on a pro workstation! I’m done building PC’s – my next movie will be cut on either a high-end HP or MacPro workstation. These systems have been proven in the trenches in Hollywood and while no hardware is perfect – they’re faster and more stable than something you’d piece together yourself. But those HP’s – OUCH!!! Pricey…
Lance Bachelder
Southern California -
Frank – I’ve used them both for a decade and delivered feature films and Emmy winning broadcast shows off of both NLE’s. The bigger issue is what are you doing with the system? Is this a hobby or vocation? Do you already have an up-to-date PC or Mac?
My take as someone who uses and LIKES BOTH is if you are planning to do pro work just get a Mac and FCP Studio. The truth is it just plain works, there’s tons of PRO 3rd party plug-ins etc. Tons and tons of training resources from beginner to expert and you’ll be using an industry standard tool.
Before everyone freaks out on me – let me just say I’m currently posting my latest feature film using Vegas 9 and Win764 (tried 10 but too buggy). It’s very fast, has great audio tools (much better than FCP) but it does have issues. It crashes far more than FCP and Vegas 10 is completely unusable in it’s current state as a pro tool due to radical instability. This was not the case in previous versions of Vegas.
As far as codecs go – just because you can throw a bunch of clips with various codecs on the timelime doesn’t mean you should! This is a bad idea in any NLE unless you have a specific reason for doing so! For instance using Apple ProRES HD codec in FCP works fantastic, works off of any hard drive and on Macbooks, iMacs and MacPro’s and is broadcast quality! So using an Apple codec with FCP is a good thing and is what you should be doing anyways. Same with Vegas – it loves the various XDCAM codecs from Sony – they work great and in real-time most of the time.
The other benefit of going Apple is the suite of software you get with FCP. Motion, DVD Studio Pro and Soundtrack Pro are good and Apple Color is a GREAT tool and really fun to use.
Here’s the confusing part. I can do things faster in Vegas such as editing, dialog editing and clean-up, mixing and color correction way faster than any FCP editor on the planet! But I can be more precise, be more pro, output easier and more accurately (meanign I can pass broadcast QC process) with FCP than I can with Vegas.
Another HUGE benefit of going FCP is Apple hardware – meaning reagardless of the model you buy you are getting a fully qualified system that will be stable and will work with FCP. Unless you can afford a nice pro workstation like those from HP or Dell, Windows hardware can really be a crapshoot – it can be great or can be a nightmare!
It comes back to what are you going to be doing… playing? Or working? Too cut and dried for some folks but it’s the truth – FCP is an accepted studio quality NLE – Vegas is not… yet.
Lance Bachelder
Southern California